


Darksword

by Sage (the_ruined_earth_sagelord)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Book: Tales from Earthsea, Fantasy, First Meetings, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Magic, Minor Original Character(s), Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Violence, Wizards, tales from earthsea au, the rating will probably change soon so keep an eye on that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-02-01 02:44:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12695523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ruined_earth_sagelord/pseuds/Sage
Summary: "The bonewoman touched his head, then withdrew her hand. 'Go,' she said, urging him from the water. 'Go to your parents. Get you to Nibomeh, and to the capital. There are Way-workers there who can teach you more than the fields could teach you here. There are workers of miracles and magic, there are warriors who can train you, there are governances. They look for a king. Go to the land of kings, Shouyou, where you belong.' "~In a land of magic and kings, a young wizard meets his Prince~





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be quite a journey. Thank you for taking the first step with me. There’s still so much more world-building to go, so much more development between Kageyama and Hinata.
> 
> Yesterday, I learned that we lost a very dear artist and friend of this community. The first part of this work is dedicated to her memory and the spirit of bringing light to all. In times of mourning, we grieve and remember and hold tight to our loved ones. Then we get up, we see the insurmountable wall. And we grow wings and fly. We have work to do. We have to create. This story is based off the Earthsea Cycle, which reminds us: ‘Only in dark the light.’ In our darkest hours, over the edge of the furthest wall, the sun is rising. The day begins. It’s going to be beautiful.
> 
> Pixie, this one’s for you.

 

 

 

**Beginnings**

The oldest stories say the islands of the world were formed when old Koushi fought the demons of the Waste. When he drew demon blood, droplets fell to the world and formed lands, and there the islands sprung from the vast sea. Different stories say the islands were formed by a warrior’s sword, or a demon’s spear, or the tusks of an ancient and giant boar. Whatever the story, they all tell the same: blood fell from the heavens where the Divines reign and mixed with the world of mortals, drawing land out of the sea of Ára. When the mage Sawamura spoke the first Word of the ancient speech, and pulled the isle Nibolg’omeh from the waters, he spilled his blood with a knife into the oceans over the side of his boat. Blood has been at the center of the world since the beginning. It is the roots, old power stretching far back before men and their crafty ways of mage-works and of wizardry. The original powers were of blood. The original powers were dark and liquid, like the body, like the seas.

Now, men came to rule the islands, and with them came governance and peace, along with wartime and chaos. Periods of unrest stretched through the years as, leaderless, the scattered islands quarreled amongst themselves. Raids, slavery, thieve guilds: all were common throughout the islands. The days of peace were few and far between. The world grew dangerous, as a world of men is wont to do. The people had moved on from old powers, had forgotten the ways of the earth, forgotten how easily the tides change, how swiftly the currents move.

Then, all at once, the balance shifted, and the ways of wizardry became absolute.

Wise men and women of power, those who knew the ancient speech of Sawamura and the tales of Koushi and the islands of the world, those versed in the ways of mage-work, began to assert themselves among the cities of men. To the great halls and streets and capitols they flew, like flies to honeyed water they flew on their wildwinds. They came as guides, teachers, offering assistance, or healing, or favorable weather. They refused payment except for the only settlement a true way-worker requires: whomsoever is assisted by one with power, must give his mage an offering of blood, as in the days of true powers, and older, more violent gods.

It came to be known that, though helpful and respected, mages with power took your very lifeblood in exchange for their service. And so they came to be known as Blood Takers.

Ages passed. Rulers rose and fell. The seas were ever moving, and the islands were ever still, their roots deep in the world. The island of Nibolg’omeh became the Isle Nibomeh, a small but prosperous place. Great ports arose along its coasts. White-walled castles were built among its green hills. In spring, when the cherry blossoms bloomed, the people danced for three nights out of the first month of melting snow, to give thanks to gods of generosity and prosperity. Peace flourished, markets sprang up in the streets, cities grew, and the largest of them was Nibo, the capital.

There were still no rulers in the world of mages and war. But the world had been formed by the warrior Koushi’s sword, and Isle Nibomeh owed its life above the waves to the mage Sawamura. Wizard and warrior alike had created Ára and its lands, and so were responsible for this place of peace, and the people began to call for a rulership to secure that peace. One who could lead them as both mage and soldier. A wise man to decide their fates; a man of cunning strategy to keep the other war-like islands under control. They called for a king.

There were Monarchs from island to island, but never a true king, never one to unite the many lands. No king had existed in the history of the world. But the people had decided: they needed a king. There would be contests of skills, councils of mage-workers, meetings of generals. There would be a gathering. All the islands who threw their lot in with Nibomeh, who desired peace over the world of lands and seas of Ára, would send representatives to the capital Nibo, and there they would determine a king. There, the people would trade histories and trade goods. There, the people would sing the songs of their ancestry, of gods and demons. There, the many peoples would remember where they’d come from, and together, decide where they were going.

The stories say the world was created by a sword and a demon. It would be truer to say the world was created by a few brave men who fought for peace, and something that hid in the corners of the war-torn, rogue-filled world: honor. It would be truer to remember those tales.

What follows is one of those tales.

 

 

**I**

**Naming**

_There was a demon with a sword_

_Who Koushi slew with Ára’s Word._

_No greater foe, no greater kill;_

_The world will wait, as worlds will._

—from _The Song of Ára_

 

Winters were cold in the Miya’n mountains, high above the warm air off the sea. During one especially cold season, when the frost settled over the farms and fields like a blanket, in one of the small northern villages, there was a boy born to a poor woman. The pregnancy was long and hard on the woman, but it was strangest once the child was born. When the two village midwives cut his cord and pulled him from his mother, he glowed. The young woman holding him nearly dropped him in fright, but the elder midwife, who’d seen her share of births and strange seemings, only cuffed the woman on the back of her head and scolded her for a near fatal mistake.

The old woman was afraid, certainly, though she was so trained she dared not show her fear to the mother, for her fear of upsetting a birthing mother was greater, and more dangerous than glowing newborns. Soon, the golden light around the infant disappeared, he opened his small mouth, and he gurgled at the young woman holding him. She slapped his rump, as all midwives do, to ensure the breath is in the body, and the baby came into the world crying, as all newborns do. Nothing more was said of it, and the babe was given to his mother. Because he had glowed like a sun in the middle of the dark winter, he was called Hinata, meaning “in the sun.”

Now, the older midwife was a cunning woman, a woman of power. She knew some of the old speech, passed to her from her great grandmother before she’d passed, gods keep her soul. Old, powerful Words that meant no more to her than a means of lifting a basket of fruit without touching her hands to it, or blessing her cow with sweet milk while cursing a neighbor’s cow with an inability to lactate. Small tricks, but enough to earn respect among the village people as a wise woman, for anyone who can touch the Way, even slightly, is respected. Respected, and feared. So the midwife kept herself apart from the village, there on the Miya’n mountains, creating a cloud of mystery about herself, enjoying the awe and veneration. She became a bonewoman, casting and reading the bones for those who ventured to her little hut at the top of Mount Gone. She enjoyed her influence over the village.

But, power recognizes power, and the bonewoman knew the glowing child for what it was before anyone else, and she kept an eye on Hinata as he grew, fearing what he might bring, or what he might end. Namely, her power over the village.

In the summer of the child’s fifth year, Hinata was a cheery and round-faced boy with a shock of red hair, bright as the sun, and he was already a clever speaker. He enjoyed teasing his poor mother and father, making them laugh after weary days of toil. They loved him, but could not care for him as they wished to, for they both sold themselves to the fields, even the mother, though women did not often work ploughs. She was a woman of tough material, with arms as brawny as her husband’s. The child learned to care for himself, and loved his parents nonetheless.

As the village wise woman, the elderly bonewoman was responsible for revealing the true names of the children brought to her when it was their time. The boy she’d delivered those five years ago, who had glowed as her assistant had held him, was due to receive his true naming. She would reveal his true name only to him and his kin, and only they would share it, for names were power and words were ways of action. But her motives were not entirely pure, for even then she wished to control the boy Hinata, for she recognized in him a great strength, and wished to keep it for herself.

Hinata was brought to her in the bright months of summer, and these were truly his namesake’s days: full of light and sun and warmth. Rivers swelled with the melted snow of the past winter, and sweet strawberries grew all along the sides of Mount Gone, the village’s chief goods in their trade with the larger townships and cities down the mountain. Hinata and his parents came with a basket of strawberries and a dried fish wrapped in leaves for the bonewoman. The boy’s father had traveled down the mountain to catch the fish himself at the island’s coast. All to please the bonewoman who would name his son. This brought a curling smile to the bonewoman’s face. This was why she enjoyed her power, and why she must keep it by binding the boy to her. She knew some Words of binding that would do the trick. All she needed was to be alone with the boy.

She brought Hinata to the largest river that flowed down the mountain. The villagers used it to float their handcrafted barges full of strawberries and dried herbs down to the ports below. Here was where she had named many of the village’s children, and here was where she would bind the child Hinata to her power.

She had Hinata stand at the water’s edge. His face was bright and clear, his eyes full of mischief. A truly pure child, unaware of any malice against him. The bonewoman almost felt pity for him as she wove her spell around him, but her lust for the boy’s power was greater.

She named him. “You are Shouyou,” she said, a little surprised at the truth of the name, for it meant “shining light,” just as he had shone that night she’d delivered him. The names came from the bones, though, came from the bones, and the water, and the wind, and she did not question them, for the Way reveals only truth. Once she named him, she completed her binding around him. “Shouyou, kneel,” she commanded in a whisper.

He looked at her, his eyes bright and gold, and, thinking it a game, he laughed.

She was stunned and nearly stumbled into the water herself. She had used her strongest binding against him, had used his true name, yet the boy shrugged off her spell like it was a suggestion. She’d known he was strong, but power like this… The boy was something else entirely, beyond her understanding. She bowed her head to the child, defeated and ashamed of what she’d tried to do. What had she become? Had she no honor? Was she a wise woman, or a madwoman?

“Hinata,” she said wearily, calling him by his use-name. “Go to your parents. Tell them they must go to Nibo, and you must go too, child. There is a destiny about you, though it’s unclear to my eyes. It shines too brightly, and I’ve spent too long with my nose in the mud. Can you forgive me, child?”

Hinata looked at her, with eyes bright as a hawk he watched her. “Auntie,” he said, a reverent name she knew she didn’t deserve. “Why should I forgive you? You gave me my name. I should say thank you!” He was a good boy, polite, as his parents had taught him to be. He bowed low to the bonewoman, smiling his sunny grin. “Thank you for naming me, Auntie!”

The bonewoman was in tears now, so great was her regret for trying to harm such a pure thing. She touched his head, then withdrew her hand, not sure she even deserved to place her fingers to his hair. “Go,” she said again, urging him from the water. “Go to your parents. Get you to Nibomeh, and to the capital. There are Way-workers there who can teach you more than the fields could teach you here. There are workers of miracles and magic, there are warriors who can train you, there are governances. They look for a king. Go to the land of kings, Shouyou, where you belong.”

And so she convinced the child’s parents that their son had the gift of magic. He was Way-touched, and needed to be taught. She warned them a gift untrained could be dangerous, and assured them that if they presented Hinata before Way-workers in the great capitol, the boy would receive teaching. He had raw potential, now it needed to be shaped.

So it came to pass that Hinata left the island of Miya’n with his parents aboard a fishing vessel, which his father bartered passage on by way of his knowledge of sailing from his life before Mount Gone. So it came to pass that they crossed the blood-dark sea to the great island Nibomeh with its gleaming white cities, tall towers, wizard schools, and—greatest of them all, the jewel of the world—the sprawling capitol of Nibo. So it came to pass, as all things must pass, as the fading light, as the growing dark.

 

 

**II**

**Warrior**

_Far Sawamura’s tongue_

_The darkness he flung;_

_Bright islands emerge,_

_His fire would purge._

—from _The Song of Ára_

 

_~ten years later~_

Drums.

Drums, and the city.

They brought their dead to the dry lands.

They brought the bodies to the hills of their fathers.

Drums.

Drums.

Drums.

 

∫ ∫ ∫

 

The Ninth Prince of Kitaga stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard below his room. He could hear the funeral drums across the bay that stretched two leagues and a half from where his palace stood on the highest hill of the island Kitaga’n. The vast, prosperous city of Kitaga sprawled along the shore of the bay, rolling up the sides of the mighty dunes. Ziggurat towers topped with temples dominated the skyline, then the business and trading districts caught the eye next with their massive markets filling entire streets. The port in the bay was a bustle of endless activity—shipping and fishing boats coming and going, vendors hawking their wares to sailors coming to Kitaga for the first time, mysterious dealings occurring under the cover of the docks. The great Monarchy of Kitaga teemed with characters of all colors and creeds, a circle of life and death and intrigue and adventure. A place of action and allurement.

The Prince sighed, and he slumped against the marble balcony railing, full of boredom.

“Your Highness, Prince Kageyama, you mustn’t slouch so. You’ll ruin your posture.”

Kageyama turned, his dark eyes weary and dull. “Oikawa, I don’t want to go today.”

Oikawa swept into the Prince’s room, and Kageyama came in from the balcony. Oikawa wrinkled his nose at the messy state of the Prince’s quarters. He poked his staff of Regency at an overturned ink pot and a piece of parchment with writing scrawled on one side. Three lines of runes had been written on it—all three were scribbled out. “I see you’ve once again stumbled your way through your tutoring.” Oikawa picked up the pot and paper, waving his hand gently over the spilled ink. It flowed back into the little pot, which Oikawa placed on the writing desk in the corner of the Prince’s room. He stamped his staff down on the floor, and the chairs dragged across the floor to rest against the wall, some discarded garments hung themselves in the wardrobe, and the covers of the Prince’s bed tucked themselves in. Kageyama watched it all silently.

“Oikawa, can _I_ use magic?”

Oikawa grunted, arranging his robes around himself as he sat on the stool near the Prince’s bed. “Mage-work is tricky business. It takes time to master the skills, and there are many skills to master.”

Kageyama looked out the window, watching seabirds alight on the edge of his balcony. The drums of the funeral procession were loud like thunder from the city at the bottom of the hill where the palace stood. “But my father could use magic, couldn’t he?”

“Yes, and he was a rightful candidate to be Grand King at Nibomeh because of it.” Oikawa’s gaze fell to the floor. “His people miss him, I’m sure.”

“I don’t,” Kageyama said in a quiet voice. “Does that make me bad?”

“It makes you human, my Prince. Feel what you feel today, there is always tomorrow to worry over what it means.” Oikawa stood. “That’s what I’m here for, as Regent. You worry about yourself and the contests at the great capital. With your father…gone, the hopes of a Kitagan Monarch seated on the throne at Nibomeh now rest with you. When you get to Nibo, you will need your strength and your wits, young Prince. Leave the Courts and your father’s Monarchy to me.” Oikawa smiled, and Kageyama felt better. Oikawa’s smiles were like soft velvet, comforting and welcome during times of stress.

Kageyama spun slowly around on his toes. He had a habit of walking through the palace barefoot, and today was another shoeless day. “When we get to Nibo, do you think I’ll meet any great wizards? Do you think they’ll train me to use magic?”

Oikawa looked at him. “What makes you think I wouldn’t have trained you myself if I thought you had the gift?”

“You always say there are different kinds of magic.” Kageyama stopped spinning and looked out the balcony window again. “Maybe there are different kinds of wizards, ones who will see a different magic in me than you can see.”

“There is only one Way,” Oikawa said sternly. He rose from the bed. “Many forms, but only one Way. Either you have it or nothing. Don’t get your hopes up, Prince. You’ll meet many wizards at Nibo, but not one of them will be able to teach you what I haven’t already. Trust in me, trust your protector and Regent.”

Kageyama looked away from the window, back at his Regent. “Yes, Oikawa. I trust you.”

Oikawa grunted. “Fifteen is such a difficult age,” he muttered. “Next year, when you are of age, you’ll understand what I say.”

Kageyama bowed his head. “Yes, Regent.”

“Good,” Oikawa said. He held out his hand. There was a little needle in his fingers. “Now, for cleaning up your room.”

Kageyama scrunched up his face. “I never understand this part of magic.”

“It’s the toll for our power. It’s the way of the world,” Oikawa said. Kageyama held out a finger. Oikawa pricked him with the needle, then swept it into his robes.

“What do you do with it, though?”

Oikawa smiled the velvet smile. “Wizard’s business,” he said secretly. Then, bowing, he left the Prince to his room.

 

The entire population of the island Kitaga’n had flooded the city to attend the funeral ceremonies for their Monarchs.Prince Kageyama passed the remaining days of the ceremonies in his room. No one in the palace saw him mourn. Servants often heard the Prince crying in his quarters for his mother, but only when he slept, only when he dreamed and could forget that she was gone. He never called for his father. The Monarch was dead, and his son could not draw a single tear for him.

When the ceremonies were over, the Regent, acting Monarch of Kitaga’n, announced that the Ninth Prince Kageyama would attend the gathering in Nibo. For ten years the gathering had been unsuccessful in choosing the true king of the islands. The Regent Oikawa assured his Courts that Kageyama would be the one to become king, that he would go and claim the throne of Nibomeh. “He will be the greatest of us,” Oikawa said, and the Courtiers believe him. His sway as Regent, his renown as a powerful wizard, gave weight and truth to his words.

The funeral ceremonies done, and the Regent’s proclamation made, Kageyama prepared for his journey across the sea to the Isle Nibomeh, and the great capital, Nibo. A longboat with three dozen oarsmen—the _Quick Attack_ , one of Kitaga’s finest vessels from its navy—was commissioned from Kitaga’s largest port. A crew was paid handsomely. A Way-weatherer was hired to watch the wind and waves. All was set to order.

“Remember the Way,” Oikawa told the young Prince before he boarded _Quick Attack_. “Don’t trust the wizards of Nibo. They’ve spent ten years wallowing in their power, trying to find a king. You will wipe clean the slate. You will set the balance. Trust yourself, trust the Way. Trust me.”

“Yes, Oikawa,” Kageyama said.

“And here.” The Regent parted his heavy robes and held out a sword, sheathed in fine leather, silver and jewels. “This was your father’s. It belongs with the heir of the Kitaga Monarchy. When you are ready, you will be able to unsheathe this sword.”

Kageyama took the sword reverently. Out of curiosity, he tried drawing the blade, but it was as if rusted shut, and the sword remained concealed. He bowed to the Regent. “Thank you, Oikawa. For everything.” He embraced his teacher and protector. They parted.

“Ára keep you safe,” Oikawa blessed his young Prince. “Come back to us a king.”

Kageyama boarded the boat waiting for him. He did not look back.

 

 

**III**

**Nibomeh**

_The great isle of Nibomeh, greatest of the lands of Ára, and at its center the jewel of the world:_

_Nibo, the Floating City._

—from _The History of the Seas and Islands_

 

A sheer cliff reached out into the blood-dark sea. A gleaming white knife cut into the vastness of the world and came back clean. The city of Nibo sprawled atop a giant ledge that jutted out over the ocean below, waves battering the roots of the island. But the isle held strong, like the grip of the world held the island in its fist it stayed firm. No waters could carve away the cliff that held the Floating City, the great capital of marble palaces and glimmering fountains and paved roads and markets so huge they filled the horizon. Nibo, the center of the world, the jewel of Ára.

_Quick Attack_ made port at the base of the cliff where the docks stretched out far into the bay like great woodman and stone teeth, hungry jaws welcoming the world’s ships and traders into its maw. Kageyama saw for the first time the legendary Isle Nibomeh. The entire island was cliffside, steep drops directly into the ocean. The villages and cities spread across Nibomeh sat atop the plateau-like island. Steps cut into the cliffs were the only way to the top from the docks.

“The Isle was laid siege to, some hundred years ago,” the captain said to Kageyama as the crew unloaded the longboat. “It’s easily defended like this, though, all the cities at the top and nothing down here but stone and sea. The invaders tried to starve out the island, but ended up starving themselves. They gave up after three months and sailed home.” The captain’s name was Iwaizumi, and he had been a harsh but fair man to the crew, and to the Prince they hosted. More than once, Kageyama had learned how to earn his keep aboard the ship. Hard work before the mast during a week’s journey at sea would make him a better Monarch, Iwaizumi had told him. Kageyama reminded the captain he was to become King of the Isles, not just Monarch. Iwaizumi reminded the Prince he wasn’t king yet, and showed him where to find the mop and bucket.

By the time they reached the top of the stone stairs cut into the island, Kageyama was only just starting to feel winded. Behind him, Iwaizumi and the Way-weatherer huffed and gasped. The sorcerer leaned on his staff, and Iwaizumi leaned on the sorcerer, and together they made their way up the last couple of steps. At the top of the stairs was a little gatehouse, and a man leaned inside, gray-cloaked and holding a staff. His beard hid his face, but Kageyama thought he could see a smile in the bright eyes that watched them approach.

“Hail, travelers,” the wizard called. “What business in Nibo?”

Iwaizumi caught his breath after a moment and spoke. “I come from the island Kitaga’n bearing with me the son of its Eighth Monarch. His Highness, the Ninth Prince of the Courts of Kitaga has come to end the ten year stalemate at Nibo and claim the throne as King of the Isles.”

The gatekeeper’s eyes glittered with that half-smile. “Indeed.” He looked at Kageyama. “Child,” he said, and Kageyama bristled. “Are you this Prince the good captain speaks of?”

Kageyama started to speak, but the Way-weatherer spoke faster. “You dare address His Highness so flippantly, wizard? Where are your manners?”

“At the bottom of the sea, along with the rest of this island,” the gatekeeper said just as fast, his eyes brighter and brighter, his teeth smiling under his beard. Kageyama wanted to laugh, but he sensed Iwaizumi and the Way-weatherer were in some kind of contest with the gatekeeper, and he held his tongue. “And now,” the gatekeeper wizard said. “I was speaking to the Prince, not to you, sorcerer of wind.”

The Way-weather stammered, red in the face, but he was defeated. The gatekeeper could see right through him as nothing more than a weather-sorcerer, not a fully-fledged wizard. By refusing to return the address of “wizard,” the gatekeeper had asserted his dominance. Though he did it so playfully, Kageyama wasn’t even sure he meant to be insulting. Merely honest.

“Are you the Prince they speak of so furiously?” the gatekeeper said again, to Kageyama.

The young Prince nodded, then remembered himself and spoke. “Yes, lord wizard, I am the Ninth Prince of the Courts.”

The man’s eyes flashed like silver disks of moonlight on a clear winter night. “You hesitate to give out your name. That is good, Prince. It shows you are wise to the ways of wizards and the world. But for the sake of the city and my duty as gatekeeper, I must ask you one question. You must answer truthfully, or you cannot enter the city.”

Iwaizumi started to protest, but Kageyama raised his hand to silence him. “I understand.”

The wizard nodded. He let his head droop, his beard puffing out over his chest. The end of his staff made little circles over the ground as he fiddled with it. Then he looked up, and his eyes were clear and steeled.

“Kageyama, Prince of the Courts,” the wizard said. “Do you know who you are?”

Kageyama stared at him, stunned. This man he’d never met, how could this man know his name? It must be wizardry, some mystic way of knowing a thing or person. And what did his question mean? Of course Kageyama knew who he was. He was a Prince, son of the Monarch of Kitaga’n.

A small voice in the back of his head reminded him, _You never even mourned when the Monarch died_.

No, he was the son of rulers, he was destined to be king!

The voice whispered: _Never mourned your father._

Destiny was greater than life, more powerful than death.

_What kind of Prince feels_ joy _when his Monarch dies?_

One who knows his destiny, one who knows his destiny, one who knows his destiny—

_What kind of son_ —

—destiny, one who knows his destiny, one who knows—

_Waste. A waste of time. This is all for waste. You are a waste of a Prince—_

“ _I don’t know_ ,” Kageyama finally gasped, the answer wrenched from his mouth. He bent over, hands on his knees. He was more breathless now than when he’d climbed the stairs. A spell? Had the gatekeeper done this? Or something else?

The wizard nodded. His smile was gone, though he looked down at Kageyama with a gentle expression. “Then may you find yourself here, young Prince.” He stamped his staff on the ground lightly, and Kageyama felt something lift from his shoulder, like a shadow passing his face. So it _had_ been a spell. Kageyama was used to the sensation of magic because of Oikawa’s constant presence. He’d grown familiar to the feel of it. But this spell didn’t seem malign or ill-intentioned. It also didn’t feel like the Regent’s magic. It just felt different.

“Crow,” the gatekeeper called. Something behind the gatehouse scampered around to the front. “This is my apprentice, your lordships. Crow, guide these good people into the city.”

Kageyama looked down, and he was face-to-face with a boy covered in dirt all over his nose and cheeks. A tangle of a cloak too big for him hung over his tunic and pants. Bright reddish hair stuck out from under the small cap he wore as if to unsuccessfully tame the curls and knots. A small braid dangled from under the cap over his left temple. He held a staff exactly his height, which was to say, not very tall indeed. He was grinning at them so brightly, Kageyama almost had to squint, like he was looking directly into the heart of a fire. He wanted to say something princely, something full of grandeur to impress the little mite dancing in front of him.

“Your name is Crow?”

The boy frowned, and instantly Kageyama regretted speaking if it meant losing the boy’s sunny smile. “Master Gatekeeper calls me that,” the young wizard said. His eyes flashed, a light that was quick and wild and playful and dangerous. “You can call me Hinata.”

Hinata led Kageyama and his Way-weatherer from the gatehouse along a dusty path, towards the actual city limits. Iwaizumi stayed behind to oversee the crew and ship. Hinata chatted pleasantly with Hoarfrost, the old Way-weatherer, exchanging tidbits of knowledge and rumor, as was the way of Way-workers and mages. Kageyama was lost trying to follow their conversation, so he settled for following in silence. He wished to point out that, as Prince, he should be treated better. But who was there to hear his complaints except an old curmudgeon and a boy who looked Kageyama’s age, if not younger? No one to hear his laments but a fool of age and a fool of youth.

They crested a hill, and Kageyama caught his breath. Hinata stood next to him, nearly bursting with excitement. Old Hoarfrost muttered under his breath, “Powers preserve.”

Below them it sprawled, the great jewel of white walls and steeples, minarets and bell towers scraping the sky, marble columns and dark-wooded taverns, courtyards and glittering fountains, aqueducts spanning the width of the city, children splashing in the pools and reservoirs, markets along every road and back alley, bright flags and pennants, open duel arenas and lecterns for orators, small apothecaries tucked between buildings, rival schools of wizardry and mage-work, green pastures for farming and the wandering philosophers and their disciples, leagues and leagues of the gleaming, beautiful wonders of Ára, gathered here, _centered_ here, the axis of the world, the hope of a thousand lands.

The Floating City. Nibo.

“I had dreamed of a place like this,” old Hoarfrost said. “No dream can replace the reality. Nibo, the Floating City. Home of the great wizards, led by the Archmage of the world himself. It certainly exceeds expectation, eh, Your Highness?”

Kageyama was without words. He stared at the city below him. He had always thought Kitaga was beautiful. And it was; even now, he held his home in his heart. But his heart was growing full, for the Prince knew he had fallen in love at once. The city below him was more than beautiful. It was near holy, a place of such majestic wonder and adventure. His heart raced and skipped, pulling, yearning to run those streets, to leap over the fountains and feel the cool water on his skin, to feel the wind in his hair, to test his skill in the arenas and listen to the wisdom of the orators and philosophers, to drink in as much knowledge as he could from the wizards, to fill himself entirely with the city before him.

“Do you like it?”

Kageyama blinked, and the spell on him was broken. He looked to his side. Hinata was watching him, his eyes gleaming with delight. He was proud of his city, his home. Kageyama saw it plain on his face.

“I do,” he said. Excitement coursed through him. “I imagine myself in the streets of Nibo already. I cannot wait to meet the Archmage, to walk the streets, to see the arenas.”

Hinata laughed. “Not yet, Your Majesty! We need to get there, first! It is still a long way.”

Kageyama stiffened. “It is ‘Your Highness.’ If you will be our guide, you shall address me properly, and not mock me.”

Hinata tilted his head. “Mock?” he said, his voice lilting. “Mock,” he repeated. “Why mock a lonely prince? You’ve been through enough, I do not wish to add to it.”

Kageyama felt his skin crawl. _Lonely_. What did this boy know of loneliness? What could this wizard’s apprentice know of his grief? _More mage-tricks, seeing into my head, shoving himself into my business. Get out, get out, get out!_

“Get out!” he said aloud, and he was panting, red-faced, shoulders hunched. The Way-weatherer was holding him across the chest, steadying him. Hinata stared at them from some distance away, staff held out before him. When had he moved?

Kageyama felt his pulse in his temples, heard the rush of blood in his ears. He breathed, calming himself. Hoarfrost squeezed his arms, and Kageyama nodded once, swift and jerking. Hoarfrost stepped away, bowing and muttering for forgiveness for touching the Prince. Kageyama returned Hinata’s level stare. He wished he appeared as calm as the wizard boy.

Kageyama turned to the city again. “Let’s go, _Crow_ ,” he said, a nasty tone slipping into his voice. He didn’t try to correct it, or care. They were all peasants, these wizards, dabbling in their secrets and tricks. They were servants looking for a king, and he would be king.

He did not look at Hinata, but he heard him say, rather softly, “Yes, Your Highness.”

 

∫ ∫ ∫

 

They needed to stay at an inn overnight outside the city. The trip into Nibo from the edge of the cliffs took longer than Hinata would have liked because the old Way-weatherer had twisted his ankle coming down a particularly steep hill. He had not asked Hinata to lay a charm of healing on him, so Hinata had not offered. The roots of the islands go deep, they say. The roots of wizards go deeper still.

Hinata showed the Prince and the weatherer to their room after the innkeeper took them in for a few ivory pieces. It took a large sum extra of his ivory to keep the innkeeper bound to secrecy about the nature of his newest lodgers. Luckily, Hinata knew the keeper. Tanaka—as Hinata knew him—was true to his word, even if his prices could be steep.

Hinata left the travelers to their room. He whispered a ward over their door, one extra precaution, then took to his own room across the hall from them.

_You shall address me properly, and not mock me_.

Hinata leaned his staff against the wall in the corner nearest the door, the staff his master had given him two years ago, the staff that marked him a true wizard. Why had the gatekeeper called him his apprentice, make him seem lesser than a full-fledged Way-worker in front of the Prince? What role did the old fox want him to play?

_Get out!_

Hinata lay out his bedroll by the door. He lay down, hands cradling his head. He stared at the ceiling. He listened to his breath. He felt the wood floor beneath him. Outside, a night-swallow trilled in the branches near his room’s window. They favored the dark, and came out only when the last ray of the sun’s light disappeared from the sky. Hinata knew its true name, and called to it. It flitted from its branch to the windowsill, perching on the other side of the glass. It pecked at the windowpane. He smiled sadly at the bird. “We both face a wall, little friend.”

_Get out._

Hinata turned over. “Let’s hope we can see over its top.”

 

∫ ∫ ∫

 

The room was dark. Outside, the moonlight shone through the silver leaves of the great oak that gnarled its way up from the center of the inn’s courtyard. But the moonlight seemed to avoid falling through the window, and so the room was dark, with one hole of silver looking out into the far night. Kageyama stared at the window, watching the leaves of the oak flash dark and silver as they fluttered in a silent breeze, catching the moonlight, playing with each other in the night.

On the other side of the room, the Way-weatherer snored softly to himself. A wizard knows sleep is important. A man needs his rest, Oikawa often said to him. And yet Kageyama found no sleep. His mind still swam in the dark waters, and the more he treaded, the stronger the tide pulled him down.

He should not have spoken to the wizard apprentice like that.

Kageyama turned over and sighed into his bedroll. The boy had meant no harm. Why get so angry at a slip of the tongue?

_Because you know you are not ‘Your Majesty.’ You are not your father, and never will be._

Kageyama squeezed his eyes shut. The small voice in the back of his head, the one the gatekeeper had meant for him to hear, was it back?

The room was quiet. Kageyama listened for his own heart, but his body lay still and silent. Hoarfrost snored on. Outside, a night-swallow trilled. Kageyama let out his breath before he even realized he’d been holding it. The voice was gone. He was alone with his thoughts.

He must apologize to Hinata.

Kageyama rose without waking the weatherer. The door creaked only once, and the hallway was before him. It was narrow and dark. Something shifted in the far corner, a shadow flitting against the eye. Kageyama touched Hinata’s door. He made to push it open.

The knife came at him quick, a glint of light in the dark, a flash of silver in the night. He only stumbled away because of the instincts driven into him from the years of swordplay and battle-training his instructors had put him through since he could hold a sword. Instantly, he was on his feet, squaring off with his attacker. A robed figure, face hidden by a heavy hood. A burglar!

Kageyama backed away, towards his open door. If he could wake the weatherer—

The thief sprang forward, knife swinging down. Kageyama sidestepped him, but narrowly avoided the blade. He felt the wind of the man’s arm pass him like a gust. He was strong. His form wasn’t that of some common burglar. This man had one purpose. To kill.

He was an assassin.

Kageyama straightened, heart racing. _He wants my death_. The assassin faced him. _He wants my death_. He tossed the knife from one hand to the other, playing with it like the leaves in the oak. _He wants my death, he wants my death._ Dark to silver, light flashing in the dim hallway. Kageyama felt his heart grow still.

“So,” he said, and his voice broke the strange spell over the darkness in his eyes. He saw clearly now. The man would stop at nothing for his goal. “You want my death,” Kageyama whispered.

The assassin snarled. Under the hood, his eyes flashed hate and fury. He leapt toward Kageyama again.

Kageyama stood there. The voice from the gatehouse returned to him.

_What kind of son are you, Prince? Waste of a time, waste of a Prince. You do not deserve the title of Monarch. You do not deserve to be called king!_

Kageyama dropped his head, waited for the final blow. The blade fell, and the night sang with silver.

Then all was dark again.

Kageyama looked up. He was alive. The assassin was on the ground, thrown bodily against the wall. An angel stood over him. No, not an angel, a man who glowed so brilliantly he only looked like one. No, not a man.

A boy.

Hinata turned to face Kageyama. He was smiling. “That was close, eh, Your Highness?”

Kageyama felt his body coiled, like a great spring. He was breathing heavily, practically panting like a dog. Cold sweat beaded on his skin. He looked once more at the lump on the ground that was his would-be murderer. Then darkness closed around his vision, and he collapsed to the ground in a heap, exhaustion taking him at last.

 

 

 


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~In a land of magic and kings, a young wizard meets his Prince~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3

 

 

 

**Hills**

_Once I set the sea alight_

_With a single fiery breath._

_Once I was so mighty_

_They would fall and call me Death._

_Sing out loud, oh lonely sailor,_

_Songs of melancholy bliss;_

_For the mighty and the middling_

_All shall come to this._

—from _The Sailor and the Dragon_

 

“Assassins! I just can’t believe it! Your Highness, you’re sure you are not hurt?”

Kageyama stared ahead, his eyes scanning the road to Nibo. The inn was long behind them, the assassin left tied up for the innkeeper to handle. The sun was high in the sky, the morning well on its way to midday. Old Hoarfrost had been going on about the attack all morning, pestering Kageyama and Hinata for details. Hinata seemed ready to wait for Kageyama to speak, as he mainly stayed silent. But Kageyama would not speak first. He didn’t want to admit that he was shaken. If he began to speak of it…he might not be able to contain his fear.

“I assure you, Hoarfrost, everything is fine,” Hinata finally chirped. Kageyama winced. For all his silence, when he did speak, Hinata’s voice was unnaturally cheery for such a gloomy start to their journey to Nibo. “His Highness did a wonderful job of holding off his attacker until I heard what was going on. All I really did was whack the villain from behind.” He grinned at Kageyama. “Right, Your Highness?”

There was something in the apprentice’s voice when he said “Your Highness” that made Kageyama want to throttle him. He claimed he did not wish to mock Kageyama, yet why did that seem exactly what he was doing? And why wouldn’t he tell Hoarfrost about what really happened?

— _a brilliant glow, Hinata standing over the body of the assassin, wings of light spread behind him. He turned to look at Kageyama. He was smiling. “That was a close one, eh, Your Highness?”—_

Kageyama stopped abruptly. Hinata nearly walked into him. “I have to relieve myself,” he announced. He glared down at Hinata. “You will accompany me. As my…guardian.”

Hinata bowed his head. “Yes, Your Highness.”

“Now, Young Lord,” the Way-weatherer said patiently. “This is why I told you to go before we left, back at the inn—”

“Come _on_ ,” Kageyama huffed, and he grabbed Hinata’s arm, heading off the road into the bushes a stone’s throw before stopping. They were out of earshot from Hoarfrost. He released Hinata’s arm and spun to face him. The apprentice looked up at him expectantly. _Damn your eyes_ , Kageyama wanted to shout. _Is there anything you don’t already see!_

“Why aren’t you telling the weatherer what happened?” Kageyama demanded.

Hinata looked around. “Are you not relieving yourself, Your Highness?”

Kageyama ignored him. “There’s something up, isn’t there, some kind of trick. Is it a spell? Did the gatekeeper put it on me?”

“If you don’t go now, Your Highness, you’ll have a serious stomachache.”

“Who sent that assassin? How did you know he was out there? He barely made any noise. You never heard us! Why are you lying to Hoarfrost?”

“There’s a nice wide tree there if you want, Your Highness.”

“ _Stop calling me that_ ,” Kageyama nearly screamed. He clamped his mouth shut, embarrassed at his own outburst. Hinata’s eyes widened—finally, he looked surprised—and he bowed his head.

“I apologize, then. I’m getting mixed signals. What _do_ you want me to call you?”

Kageyama’s eye twitched. “What?”

Hinata looked up. He walked over to the tree he’d pointed to and leaned against it, resting his staff across his chest. “If not ‘Majesty,’ and if not ‘Highness,’ then what do I call you?”

“No, that’s not—” Kageyama waved his hands in the air. “You’re supposed to call me Highness, but you’re saying it wrong.”

Hinata’s eyes flashed. Kageyama realized it was very dark under the cover of these trees, and it looked like Hinata’s eyes were glowing, like a wood-panther before it struck its prey. “And tell me, Prince. How does a _wizard_ say something wrong? You know, of course, that my very nature is to say things _truly_.”

Kageyama moved closer to him. His eyes were so _bright_. “But you’re saying it wrong,” he said again, his voice softer. “Like it’s a bad taste in your mouth.”

Hinata looked up at him. They were very close, under the tree, hidden in the shade from the morning sun. “Can I tell you a secret, then?” His voice was softer, too.

“Yes,” Kageyama whispered. Why did he feel so hot? Why was he whispering as if they were the only people in the world, and to speak louder might wake the oceans and skies?

Hinata leaned forward. “I only say it the way you did when you told me to call you ‘Highness.’ Like a bad taste in the mouth.”

They were silent for a moment. Around them, leaves fell from the tree, its branches extending around them like a crown, or wings. Something burned inside Kageyama, and he glared at the wizard apprentice. “You are as dumb as an ass,” he said witheringly, an old insult from Kitaga.

Hinata didn’t miss a beat. “But I look twice as good, don’t I?”

Kageyama started. Overhead, a squirrel leapt from one branch to another, but neither he nor Hinata moved. They kept staring at each other.

Then Hinata’s mouth trembled. Kageyama felt himself waver. The burning thing inside him roared, and it flooded his body with warmth. Hinata’s mouth trembled again, and suddenly his face broke into a grin. He chuckled, caught himself, then burst out laughing. Kageyama tried to hold his composure, but Hinata’s explosive laughter was too close, too warm and bright, too contagious. Suddenly, he cracked, and he was laughing, and the woods rang out with the peals of their joy. The squirrel above was spooked, and it leapt away, chittering at them angrily.

Kageyama wiped his eyes, still chuckling. “Looks twice as good,” he muttered. “Who even says that?”

“Apparently,” Hinata wheezed, doubled over and clutching his sides. “A dumb ass.”

They burst out laughing again.

Once they caught their breath and were standing upright again, Kageyama looked at the wizard apprentice, truly, as if for the first time. He was young, but certainly he had to be Kageyama’s age. His red hair caught the sun like fire, and today it was wild and bushy, without a hat to keep it pinned in place. Hinata fiddled with the braid at his temple while Kageyama studied him, expectantly patient as the Prince gathered his thoughts. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, and Kageyama got the impression Hinata was used to silence, which seemed bizarre given how, apparently, he liked to talk.

“I didn’t thank you for last night,” Kageyama said.

“Hm?” Hinata held a hand to his ear. “What was that? Sorry, there’s a bit of dust in my ear from sleeping next to old Hoarfrost all the rest of last night to keep you company.”

Kageyama hid his smile by turning away. “Dumb ass,” he said again. “I _said_ … Thank you.” He turned and looked down at the wizard apprentice. “Thank you…Hinata.”

Hinata looked surprised. Twice in one day. Kageyama counted that as a small victory.

Then Hinata bowed. “I am at your service, Your Highness.” And when he spoke, it was with the utmost sincerity. There was no distaste in his voice. And yet…

It still sounded wrong.

“Kageyama.”

Hinata looked up.

“Kageyama,” the Prince said again. He held out his hand. “Please, my name is Kageyama.”

Hinata looked at the hand Kageyama offered, then back at his face. He smiled. Then he bowed again, lower, holding out his staff to the side. “You honor me, my lord,” he said quietly. And then, without taking Kageyama’s hand, he walked past him, and began to climb back up the hill towards the road. “Come,” he said. “We should get back to the weatherer. He’ll start to worry even the bathroom is not safe.” And then he was gone.

Kageyama stayed where he was, hand extended, heart growing cold. What had he done wrong? Did he have the wrong impression about the apprentice? He’d thought…

His hand closed. He held it to his chest.

He’d thought wrong.

 

∫ ∫ ∫

 

Hinata clambered out of the woods, pushing aside ferns and branches with his staff. He listened to the whisper of grass against his traveling cloak hanging loose from his shoulders. His hat, tucked into his belt, snagged on a bush, and he tugged it away. A swarm of flies gathered near his face, but he waved his hand once and they drifted off. He stumbled out onto the road, and shook himself free of any barbs and thistles.

_Kageyama._

Hinata shook his head, sighing. The Prince was too trusting. Even if it wasn’t his true name, he should not give it up so easily, especially to wizards. For now, “Highness” would have to do.

_My name is Kageyama_.

Hinata found his mouth forming the sounds of the Prince’s name, but he dared not speak them aloud, like a trout gaping on a dry dock he stayed quiet, floundering in silence around the syllables. He wished to speak them, say to the Prince “Kageyama,” and call him a companion, but they could never be equals. Kageyama was a Prince who thought Hinata was only an apprentice. He’d play the part for now, remain humble in front of the Prince, but oh, how he wished to stand by Kageyama’s side, look him in the face like an equal, and call him friend.

“Hoarfrost,” Hinata called, looking up and down the road. Where had the old weather-mage gone? “Weatherer, we must make way! The road to Nibo is still long! His Highness is done his business in the woods, and I have much of my own in the city.”

The road was quiet. Hinata didn’t like the stillness. There should have been birds chirping, insects buzzing. Instead, he felt the ominous stillness of death. He raised his staff. “Come out from the shadows,” he spoke into the silence.

On the other side of the road, a figure stepped out from the trees, sword held in hand. He was hooded like the assassin from the inn, but definitely a different man, definitely bigger. He tossed his sword from hand to hand easily, like a toy. “You are not the one I seek,” the assassin said in a deep voice. “Where is the Prince?”

“Relieving himself in the trees, I believe,” Hinata said. He stamped his staff down on the road in front of him. “But before you visit the Prince, may I ask what your business is with His Highness?”

“I’ve come to collect,” the man said, laughing under his hood. “Been waiting for my partner since last night, and who do I see strollin’ down the road but our target, unharmed and well. So I says to myself, something’s amiss. My partner’s not been known to fail yet, so I figures there’s a wizard traveling with the Prince.” He laughed again. “Good thing the wizard was nothing but an old cod with barely the sense to hear me blade coming for his back. Now, out of the way, knave, so I can greet your little Prince.”

Hinata bristled. Hoarfrost. What happened to him? He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He needed to focus on the enemy in front of him first. “Why are you hunting the Prince?” he said, ignoring the “knave” comment. Better if the man didn’t know his true nature.

“Told you,” the assassin said, raising his sword. “To collect.” He lunged forward, the blade slicing through the air like a snake striking a mouse. Hinata jumped away, swinging his staff in a wide arc with a yell. The ground at the man’s feet turned to quicksand. He shouted in surprise, beginning to sink at once. But he grabbed a low hanging branch from the trees near the road and yanked himself free. He dropped on the other side of the sinkhole and pulled some throwing stars from his belt. “Another sorcerer,” he snarled. He threw the stars, with deadly accuracy he hurled them across the road, aimed directly for Hinata’s head and waist.

Hinata spoke a word, loud as lightning in the summer heat. There was a splintering crack, and the throwing stars split in half, whirling safely around his body to embed themselves in the bushes and trees behind him. The assassin stared at him from under his hood, stunned. Then there was a crunching _thud_. The man groaned, sank to his knees, and collapsed to the road.

Behind him stood Kageyama, the scabbard of his sword raised over his head. He stared at Hinata from across the road, panting hard. His face was pale and terror-stricken.

“Now,” he said, lowering his sword. “We’re even.”

 

∫ ∫ ∫

 

While Kageyama searched the unconscious assassin, Hinata prayed.

Kageyama watched the apprentice kneeling by the spot of the road which had somehow turned into quicksand. _Mage-work_ , Kageyama thought solemnly. Hinata was silent, eyes closed, head bowed, but his fingers trailed through the sand, weaving nimbly through the fine grains. Eventually, when Hinata patted it gently with his hand, the ground was firm earth again, and the road was healed. Kageyama pulled some more throwing stars from the assassin’s belt, and tucking them away in his knapsack, he turned to Hinata. “Why bother? It’s just a little sinkhole. It’s not even on the main part of the road. No one will ever step near it.”

Hinata finally opened his eyes, and Kageyama shivered. The irises had grown dark, as if a shadow filled them. Then the apprentice blinked, he focused on Kageyama, and his eyes cleared, turning bright again. “To keep the balance,” was all Hinata said, and he smiled. But it was a small smile, and sad, and Kageyama’s chest tightened. He glanced behind him.

They had found Hoarfrost.

“What should we do?” Kageyama asked, and in that moment, he felt very small.

“What are the customs where you are from?” Hinata asked, rising. He picked up his staff and went over to kneel again, this time by Hoarfrost’s body.

“In Kitaga, we return our dead to the hills of our fathers,” Kageyama whispered, and in his head he heard them. The drums.

“We have no hills here in Nibomeh,” Hinata said. He lowered his face to the old man’s dirty head, and brushing aside his gray hairs, kissed the weatherer’s forehead. “Thank you, Chugaku,” he said, the man’s true name, and the wind picked up and howled through the trees, and the air around them grew cold, and the road was covered with a thin layer of frost. Hinata smiled down at the lifeless body. “One last reminder of your namesake. Thank you, old weatherer. Go now, to the lands of rest.” He stood, gripping his staff. “We will make a hill, Your Highness, and bury him there.”

Kageyama looked up at him. “What? We can’t…we—we don’t have—”

Hinata was staring off into the woods. The wind played at his cloak, and rustled through his fiery hair. “Will you not honor your friend and protector? His life was taken on account of yours. You must make sure it was worth it.”

Kageyama snarled. He leapt to his feet, holding out his sheathed sword. “How dare you, wizard—”

“So you want my death?”

Kageyama froze. Hinata still did not look at him, only calmly watched the forest, seeing something perhaps Kageyama could never see. “Is that what you told the assassin last night? Were you that ready to give it to him?” He looked down at Hoarfrost’s body. “I think old Hoarfrost wanted to keep living, just a little longer. To see the white palaces and gleaming towers of Nibo, to walk the streets of his dreams. Now he never will.” Finally, he raised his eyes to Kageyama. “Is life that meaningless to you, Your Highness, that you would throw it away?”

Kageyama couldn’t move. It was as if he’d been pinned in place. What was this? Magic? No, he knew that feeling. Hinata used no spell on him. Yet his body wouldn’t move. His arms felt heavy. His chest was cold.

This was fear.

Hinata lowered his eyes again, and Kageyama could move. He took a shuddering breath and backed away from the apprentice and Hoarfrost. “I cannot be here now,” he mumbled, or at least he thought he said it aloud. He turned and ran down the road as fast as he could, and Hinata didn’t call after him.

 

∫ ∫ ∫

 

Kageyama stopped by a stream. It ran near the side of the road, bubbling its tune over the stones and leaves. Kageyama gathered his breath, and he stared out into the woods, the tall trees and lush greenery. He didn’t know how far he’d run, but it didn’t feel enough. He still felt too close to the—to the death waiting for him back with Hinata and the—

Kageyama retched.

When he was done, he wiped his mouth, sobbing into his hands. The sunlight was warm on his head, and a cool breeze helped him feel clean after being sick in the road, but still he felt miserable. Chills ran through his body, and he collapsed to his knees, shaking.

“Oi, boy, what are your tears for?”

Kageyama scrambled to his feet at once, wiping his eyes. He looked around him. In the stream, a man stood to his ankles in the water, trousers rolled up. He was big and muscular, with a bone-white scar on his left cheek and dark, close-cropped hair. His upper body was naked. He was washing his shirt in the water, looking up at Kageyama on the road. How had Kageyama not noticed him?

Then he saw the whitewood staff leaning on a tree by the bank of the stream, and he shivered.

_A wizard_.

“My tears are for me,” Kageyama said, sniffling. He rubbed his sleeve under his nose. “They aren’t for you to ask of, wizard.” He tried his best to sound imperiously aloof.

The man smiled. “Ay, young master, that is true. But I see a poor boy crying alone in the woods, and I can’t help but think some harm has come to him.” He shook out the shirt. “I worry is all, young master.”

Kageyama seethed. _Poor boy?_ “I am not some lost wretch,” he said sternly. “I am the Ninth Prince of Kitaga. And I don’t need _anyone_ to _worry_ about me!”

The man bowed his head. He wrung out the water from his shirt into the stream. “Course you don’t, young master. Never thought you did.” He glanced further up the road, in the direction Kageyama had left. “But I know a run when I see one, and you were running from something, for sure.” He slapped the shirt on a large rock to sun it dry. He stepped out of the stream, picking his way carefully over the bank, and sat near the rock. “You ought to go back now, young Prince of Kitaga, or you won’t be able to face the city.”

Kageyama narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, wizard?”

The man chuckled. “You call me wizard, but ask what I mean? Ay, I mean what I say, young master, and what I say is meant. I speak, and so it is done. What is done becomes speech, and what is spoken becomes real. There is no difference between you or I, or the rock here, or the water. Nor between you and the fear waiting for you back along this road. If you can’t face that, young Prince, you will never walk the streets of the Floating City. You will be caught in your own trap of doubt. Do not doubt yourself, young master. Feel the fear. Become it. Then let it drift through you like the silt in this stream. Pass, young master, pass through.”

Kageyama gulped. What was the old loon going on about? 

The man stood suddenly. “Time to go,” he said cheerily. He peeled his shirt from the rock. It was completely dry, though it had only laid in the sun for a few moments. The man slipped it over his head, dragged a heavy cloak out from a bush and wrapped it around his shoulders, and took the whitewood staff in his hand. He looked up, above the trees, to the east, where the sun, now later in the morning, climbed higher into the sky. “The light rises, and magic is an art where we always look up,” the man said, and Kageyama was suddenly filled with a wave of absolute warmth and joy that rolled from the man’s very being. He felt like crying all over again, but for a different reason, a better reason: one of joy, one of hope. The wizard turned to face Kageyama, his eyes piercing, his mouth smiling. “It’s going to be a beautiful day.”

And he was gone.

Kageyama blinked. The spot by the stream was empty. The wizard had vanished.

Kageyama turned to the road. He needed to go back. He needed to set things right. First, he needed to thank the young wizard for helping him again. Then he needed to truly apologize.

And then he would bury Hoarfrost.

Kageyama glanced back at the stream. The sun glinted off the water like gold flecks. The man, whoever he was, had been right. It was going to be a beautiful day.

He turned away, and looked up the road. Magic is an art where you always look up.

_Hinata, wait for me. I’m coming back._

 

∫ ∫ ∫

 

Hinata watched the sun climb higher in the blue sky. Clouds passed between the sun and the land, and there was a pattern of shade and brightness. Hinata tried to follow the sense of the pattern, tried to feel its rhythm, but as always it eluded him. Some patterns are just too great, too beyond understanding. He settled for sitting against a tree, staff laid across his lap, eyes closed, waiting for a cloud to provide shade, and counting the seconds until it passed and the sunlight returned. _In light the dark_ , he repeated in his head. _And from darkness, light_.

“Hinata!”

The wizard boy slowly opened his eyes, and he was already smiling. He watched Kageyama run down the road, panting and red-faced. His eyes seemed brighter, as if the clouds had passed from them. Hinata looked up at the sky, thanking the clouds that passed and left behind the light. He rose to meet the Prince.

Kageyama stopped before him, and suddenly the Prince seemed unsure what to say or do. He stared at Hinata, breathing heavily.

Then he bowed.

Hinata rushed forward, and he placed a hand on Kageyama’s shoulder, forcing him back up. “A Prince should not bow to a simple wizard apprentice,” he said gently.

Kageyama shook off Hinata’s hand and bowed again. “There are many things that shouldn’t be done,” Kageyama said brusquely. “And one of them is refusing to properly thank someone who defends you. Twice.”

“You’ve already thanked me, Your Highness,” Hinata said, but the Prince shook his head.

“Not in the ways of my people,” Kageyama said. “I cannot give you a feast, like the great Monarchs of Kitaga would give to their arms-brothers, but I can give you…” He rummaged through his knapsack, and pulled out some bread wrapped in paper-leaf. “This,” he said, his voice small.

Hinata took the bundle and studied it. “This is bread,” he said after a moment.

“I know it’s not anything grand like a feast or even a wood-pheasant,” Kageyama muttered, face flushed with embarrassment. “But I promise when we get to Nibo and I am granted access to my father’s coffers I will be able to afford a giant feast for—”

Hinata stepped forward and hugged Kageyama.

The Prince went stiff. Hinata kept hugging him though, smiling into his shoulder. He hadn’t realized how tall the other boy was compared to him.

Then he felt Kageyama’s arms close around him, and the Prince embraced him back.

Hinata pulled away, and he tried to ignore the burning sensation where he still felt the Prince’s arms on his back. “This is enough, Your Highness,” he said. “It is more than enough.”

“Are you just saying that to make me feel better, wizard?” Kageyama murmured.

Hinata looked up at him. The Prince really was nothing more than a big, awkward boy. How could Hinata make him see he meant what he said? Then he smiled. Of course.

“A wizard says what he means, and means what he says,” he said. “Kageyama.”

The Prince’s eyes widened. Then they grew misty, and he bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For how I’ve acted. I’m so, so sorry.”

They stood there in the road together, a wizard holding the gift a Prince had given him. They cried together for Hoarfrost, their old companion. They laughed through their tears at how ridiculous they’d both been. The sun shone bight in the clear sky, and there were no clouds. There was no darkness.

The Prince and Hinata carried Hoarfrost’s body off the road, towards a clearing Hinata had found. Kageyama watched the wizard apprentice speak to the grassy clearing until the ground shifted and opened, and the earth yielded a new hill in the center of the clearing. Kageyama and Hinata placed Hoarfrost’s body at the leveled top of the hill, the smell of fresh earth filling the air, the clean scent of dirt and grass and sunlight warming the world.

Kageyama cried some more. Hinata sang a song of a man who sailed around the world searching for a white dragon he’d seen on the crest of the waves of his home island, only to perish on the open sea. It was a sad, slow song, one Kageyama had never heard. Then Hinata cried, and Kageyama tried singing, his voice soft and scratchy compared to Hinata’s clear tones. But still he sang, a lament he’d once learned from his father. Then they took turns singing the first dozen or so verses of the _Song of Ára_ , which every child knew by heart. Together, they grieved their old companion into the dry lands of rest.

“I’m sorry, Hoarfrost,” Kageyama whispered, head bowed. The sun was directly above them now. The day was half gone. “I will never forget you, I swear.”

“We won’t,” Hinata assured him, stepping forward to touch the Prince’s arm. “We will remember him as the sky remembers the clouds, as the hawk remembers the mouse.” Hinata’s eyes burned bright gold, and Kageyama stared at them, tears in his own eyes, and he felt an immense surge of warmth. “We will remember him by living,” Hinata said, and Kageyama choked up again. He wiped his eyes, nodding.

“I promise, Hoarfrost,” Kageyama whispered to the hill, to the wind. “I’ll keep going for you.” He looked up to the sky, far and wide above him, endless as the world.

“I will continue to live.”

 

∫ ∫ ∫

 

The sun was high in the sky, the land was warm, the leaves glimmered brightly in the trees. Two boys climbed one last rise in the long road to the center of the world, the city of Nibo, nestled at the heart of the small Isle Nibomeh. Below them, the boys could see all roads converging on the great city. Carts pulled by mules, filled with silks and spices from all over Ára. Merchants with their goods and wares. Caravans from rich monarchies come to ply the city with their good graces. Entire parades bearing rulers and Monarchs into the city walls. Flags and pennants from islands all across the seas rose above the palaces and towers, every royal family under the sun and the ten gods staking their claim in the Gathering, the great decision—who would be king.

Amongst all the fanfare and glory, a small boy in simple robes led another boy dressed in princely garb through the crowds of merchants and vendors hawking their wares outside the city walls. Together, the two boys waded through the caravans and parades and other royal families.

Above it all, as if a ghost, or the wind, a face watched them, smiling. And in the center of the city, in a grove of rowan trees far removed from the loud squawking and yelling of the near-constant market days, a man pulled his face away from a bowl of clear water. He was smiling, the bone-white scar on his left cheek wrinkling. He had seen the caravans, the parades, the merchants. And in the center of it all, he had seen the young wizard leading the Prince.

“So,” the Archmage said. He looked up through the rowan trees to feel the sunlight on his face. “They’re here.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The opening song (which is the same song Hinata sings over Hoarfrost’s hill) is based on a song from the first "How To Train Your Dragon" book, which is beautiful and everyone should go read (the entire series actually).
> 
> Also, it already says, but this is based on Ursula K. LeGuin’s "Tales of Earthsea Cycle," another series you should definitely read if you love fantasy.
> 
> If you’re ever confused about any lore or terms I’m using (most of them I made up for this world/AU), let me know and I’ll clarify what I can!
> 
> Thanks for reading this second part. Part III coming real soon. Just gotta get through finals! Then it’s onward, to the Floating City.


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A room? We’re sharing?”
> 
> “Course,” Hinata said, snorting. His eyes gleamed in the firelight, and he smiled as he watched the people in the hall dance and laugh. Kageyama stared at him. The wizard seemed so much different here, among people. He’d touched Kageyama on the shoulder like a friend. He’d gotten them a room to share. He’d defended his name—even a fake one—to the innkeeper.
> 
> Was this who the wizard truly was? Not the distant, formal guide, but a joyous, energetic youth? A boy—just like Kageyama.
> 
>  
> 
> ~In a land of magic and kings, a young wizard meets his Prince~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter of Darksword is dedicated to the memory of Ursula K. Le Guin.

 

 

 

**I**

****Shadow** **

 

 

> _“There is a darkness in this world, a power that wishes to consume us all.”_
> 
> _“How do we fight it, my lord?”_
> 
> _“We don’t. Don’t you see? It exists inside us. To fight it would tear us apart. We must_ accept _it. Only then will the world truly know balance.”_
> 
> —from  _a conversation between Monarch Koutarou_
> 
> _and his advisor, on the eve of the Battle at Fukuro-Dani_

 

“You don’t know what strawberries are?”

Kageyama hid his embarrassment behind a small cough. He primly arranged his robes around his knees, then glared at Hinata, who grinned as he pulled another little red fruit like a jewel from his knapsack. They walked the road to Nibo, the city awaiting them with its wizards and warriors and rulers, and the great King’s Gathering—to crown the first king of Ára. They’d stopped on the side of road, sitting on the embankment for a brief lunch. “We do not have strawberries on Kitaga’n Island,” Kageyama explained stiffly. “And in Kitaga City our nobility does not need something so…” He looked down at the fruit in Hinata’s hand. “Frivolous.”

Hinata burst out laughing.

Kageyama’s glare turned cold. “Did I say something funny, apprentice?”

Hinata waved his hand, still chuckling. He popped the strawberry in his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully before speaking, still smiling. Red juice trailed down his chin. Kageyama watched the bead of juice follow the curve of Hinata’s throat. Then Hinata wiped at it with his sleeve, and Kageyama looked away again, irritated.

Hinata swallowed, and he spoke. “I only laugh, Your Highness,” he said, “because you said you don’t  _need_  something frivolous.” Hinata’s smile was sly, his eyes were mischievous as he reached into his pack. “When I think that’s  _exactly_  what you need.”

He chucked a strawberry at Kageyama’s chest.

It burst into a little splatter of red juice and tiny seeds all over the front of Kageyama’s shirt and vest. He gaped at the mess on him, stunned. Hinata burst out laughing again. Kageyama scrambled to his feet, dropping his own food to the ground. Hinata dashed away, and Kageyama gave chase. Hinata’s laugh filled the road and forest with its lilting music, and Kageyama roared after him.

It had been several days since they’d buried Hoarfrost the Way-weatherer at their makeshift hill. The road was long and weary, longer and wearier than Prince Kageyama had been expecting. But the travel was relatively easy, the road flat, the surprises kept to a minimum. After they’d given Hoarfrost his funeral rights, they had returned to the unconscious body of the assassin Hinata had defeated. He’d sent Kageyama ahead so he could “deal with” the man.

“You won’t want to see what happens,” Hinata had said. “And you don’t need to.”

Kageyama had believed him.

Hinata had returned with a deepwolf.

Kageyama had been shocked at first, which was fair enough, since a wolf is alarming as it is. But seeing a deepwolf for the first time was terrifying. He’d heard their mournful howls from outside Kitaga city, echoing through the tall trees and over the mighty hills. Some thought they were myths, but there one was, standing before Kageyama, its pitch black eyes staring into Kageyama, memorizing every detail of him like the perfect hunter it was.

“Wizard,” Kageyama had hissed. “What is  _this_?”

Hinata had laughed and ran his hand through the wolf’s sleek gray fur. A strange rippling pattern of black fur accentuated the gray. “This is what’s left of our assassin problem,” Hinata said. “He won’t be bothering people anymore.” He cocked his head. “Well, for money, anyway. I’m not sure if deepwolves hunt people. I think they prefer woodelk.”

Hinata had whispered into the huge wolf’s ear. He had to stand on his tiptoes to reach, the creature was so enormous. While he spoke softly to it, the beast had watched Kageyama with its calm, dark eyes, the cold glint of intelligence in them chilling Kageyama to the bone. Then the animal lowered its head and huffed in Hinata’s face, its warm breath ruffling Hinata’s hair. Hinata had laughed. The creature had turned, and slipped quietly into the woods, returning to the wild.

After that, Kageyama never left Hinata’s side. If the boy was powerful enough to transform a grown man into a deepwolf, Kageyama didn’t want to go anywhere without him. Not that they had much variety, as the road stretched on before them a few more days to the grand city of Nibo. But there had been occasional villages and camps they’d stopped at, and Kageyama made sure he was always within reach or eyesight of his companion.

It had taken him a while to start calling Hinata that, but one day he realized that’s what they were: companions. Traveling companions, at least. But still, even though it had only been a few days, Hinata was the person Kageyama had spent the longest consecutive amount of time with, other than his teacher, Oikawa. Even his parents had been removed, always busy with ruling the Monarchy.

When he told this to Hinata the day before, he’d thought the young wizard apprentice would laugh at him. But Hinata had stopped walking in the middle of the path and looked up to the sky. Then he turned to Kageyama with a smile.

“Besides the old witches and wizards I’ve trained with,” he said, “you’re the first person my age I’ve really gotten to spend time with. You’re my companion, too, Your Highness.” And his smile was genuine, his eyes full of light, his voice cheerful.

And Kageyama was very happy to hear that.

“May I…” He hesitated, still unsure of himself. “May I call you…Hinata?”

Hinata had smiled at that. “You’ve always been free to. And I believe you called me by that name already, once. You were running up to me on the road, very excited.”

Kageyama had blushed.  _This damn dumb-ass_ , he’d thought. But it wasn’t an angry thought. More…a familiar one. A rhythm he was growing accustomed to. He could recognize when Hinata was teasing him—not to make fun  _of_  him, but to have fun  _with_  him. It was something Kageyama had never experienced as a young Monarch-in-training: friendship.

He fell in love with it immediately.

And he was, indeed, very happy.

Except now. Now, he thought of nothing but vengeance.

“Hinata!” he roared, thundering through the woods. He wiped his hands frantically at the strawberry juice already staining his shirt. “Hinata, where are you, dumb-ass!”

Something whacked him on the butt, and he spun around. Hinata peeked out from a bush, his staff held aloft. He laughed and shot out of the bush, tackling Kageyama around the waist. Kageyama yelped, and they went down.

The two of them tussled across the grass, each trying to pin the other. Kageyama had a momentary flash of panic, wondering what someone might think if they saw a prince rolling on the ground like this.

Then Hinata grabbed his ear, and he roared savagely, all thoughts of propriety vanishing at once.

Finally, Kageyama was able to roll on top of Hinata and pin the apprentice’s own staff across his chest, shoving him to the ground. “Hah!” Kageyama cried. “I’ve got you!”

Hinata smiled. “Indeed, Your Highness. Or…”

And then he was gone. Kageyama stumbled to his hands and knees, a bunch of oranges rolling out from under him.

“Or you have a bushel of fruit,” Hinata crowed from above him, squatting on a tree branch ten feet in the air, his staff swinging causally in one hand.

Kageyama stood, brushing the dirt and grass from his pants. He looked up at Hinata, staring at him, mouth slightly hanging open. “How?” he asked.

Hinata snorted. He lowered himself to the branch below him, as nimble as a squirrel he descended from the tree. He dropped in front of Kageyama. “That’s an easy one,” he said, bending to pick up an orange. He began peeling it as he spoke. “It’s not a seeming, which are easiest to make, and it’s not a changing, which is hardest to make.”

“The deepwolf,” Kageyama said, thinking back to how Hinata had changed the assassin into an animal.

Hinata nodded, biting into the peeled orange like it was an apple. Kageyama made a disgusted face at him. “Changings and seemings are part of the Way-work we do,” he said, gesturing to himself when he said ‘we.’ He offered the orange to Kageyama. The prince held up a firm hand. Hinata shrugged and bit into the orange again. “But something like that, a moving, I guess you could call it, is somewhere in between.” He grinned, juice dribbling down his chin.

Kageyama looked away, resisting the urge to reach out and wipe the other boy’s face. This apprentice seriously needed to learn how to properly eat fruit. “You must be very powerful,” Kageyama said, still refusing to look at Hinata, but now keeping his gaze leveled on the tree directly in front of him. He couldn’t believe he was doing this.  _Complimenting_  this boy? This rough-country wizard  _apprentice_?

Hinata glanced at him. He wiped his sleeve across his mouth and tossed the remains of the orange over his shoulder. “Why do you say that?”

“I’ve never seen a wizard able to change a man like that, or the road, or even summon all that light, like you did back at the inn.” Kageyama bit his lip. He knew he shouldn’t say it, but… “And you’re just an apprentice. Are all wizards from Nibo this powerful?”

Hinata made a sound in his throat, “Hmph,” and pulled out his water canteen to take a swig from it. He glared at Kageyama over the canteen’s edge as he drank, but Kageyama only watched him from the corner of his eye, still not looking at him directly.

Hinata finished drinking with a sigh. “Just an apprentice,” Kageyama heard him mutter, and he felt a pang of guilt. He knew that would strike a blow against the boy’s pride. But surely, if just an apprentice was this powerful, what would the rest of the wizards be like in Nibo?

Kageyama was surprised when Hinata asked, “You haven’t met many real wizards then, have you?”

“Well, besides my court mages and the Regent of my Monarchy, no.”

Hinata looked up. “Your Regent?”

Kageyama puffed out his chest proudly. “Yes, my teacher, Oikawa. He’s a fully-fledged wizard. He’s watching the Monarchy while I go to Nibo.”

Hinata nodded. “I’d very much like to meet this man, someday. It’s not often that a wizard takes such a position of power.”

“What about the Archmage?” Kageyama countered. He didn’t like the tone in Hinata’s voice just then. It sounded…suspicious. “The Archmage is one of the most revered and powerful men in all of Ára.”

Hinata nodded again, a little bob of his head. He took another sip from his canteen. “It is not a position you take, however. It is given by the Way, and those who stand in its currents. By the masters of the Way-work, the art-magic.” Hinata clutched his staff a little closer to him, swaying in place slightly. Kageyama stared at him. When the boy spoke like this, spoke of the Way and the deep magic, his eyes grew bright, his face grew shadowed. Kageyama had seen it once before, in the woods.

 _Tell me, Prince. How does a wizard_   _say something wrong? You know of course, that my very nature is to say things_ truly _._

Kageyama shivered, and he automatically moved closer to Hinata, as if for warmth or comfort, before he realized what he was doing and shifted away again.

“And anyway,” Hinata said, and the darkness lifted, his eyes clearing, and Kageyama let out a tense breath. “I’m nothing to compare your expectations to, really. Wait until you see the great wizards in Nibo. They hold the real power of the world. You may think I’m powerful, but you haven’t seen anything yet.” He grinned, and Kageyama smiled back, glad the tension was eased again.

Hinata took another long swig from his canteen, while Kageyama picked up some of the oranges and put them in his bag. Together, he and Hinata began to hike back out of the woods, to the road.

When they reached the road, Kageyama stopped to drink from his canteen as well, and Hinata took one last sip from his. “Hinata,” Kageyama said when he was finished. Hinata turned his head, and Kageyama ignored the thrill in his gut when he did. He needed to get used to using the boy’s name. “How much longer do you think we have before we reach Nibo?”

Hinata grinned, putting his canteen away in his bag. He slung the pack over his shoulder, tying off the straps. “Eager to start competing for the crown already, Your Highness?”

Kageyama rolled his eyes. “We’re not  _all_  competitive weasels, like  _some_  people.”

Hinata’s head perked up. “What!” he practically squawked. His voice cracked on the word, and Kageyama snickered.

“Now I know why the gatekeeper calls you Crow,” he teased.

Hinata huffed, waving his hand dismissively. He turned. “Just…come on, Your Highness. It’s not much further.”

Kageyama grinned, following after the young apprentice. He made cawing squawks behind Hinata’s back, and Hinata grumbled ahead of him. The Prince laughed. He was starting to feel more comfortable out here on the road, where no one expected great things of him, or judged his worth based on his bloodline rather than his own merits. Out here, traveling with Hinata, he felt at peace. For the first time in a long while, he felt truly happy.

 **_Tobio_ ** _._

Kageyama froze.

_His true name…_

He whirled around. Behind him was nothing but the open road. His heart hammered in his chest. Who had spoken? Who could know his true name out here? How could  _anyone_  know it? Only he knew it, he and the witch who’d named him in Kitaga Lake, he and his parents, and they were dead, they were gone.

“Buried gods,” Kageyama whispered, backing away from the looming trees on the side of the road. It was a ghost—it had to be—his father’s ghost come back from the dead. It was punishment for hating his father at the end of his life, for not going to the funeral, for thinking he deserved happiness with Hinata, for—

Something erupted from the woods, a dark shade, horrible and vast, radiating an aura of pure evil. Further up the road, Hinata turned at once, sensing the darkness. He charged towards the monstrous shadow.

“ _Kageyama!_ ”

The Prince stared at the shadow, stunned, but hearing Hinata call his name awoke something inside him, an instinct older than thought.

 _Survive_.

Hinata reached him; he was speaking a spell, reciting words in a language Kageyama did not know. The shade billowed and hissed at the words, turning its formless shape to Hinata. A bright light poured from his staff to fill the void, and Hinata cast it at the creature. It only roared and turned back to Kageyama, like smoke, like a man’s shadow, like a thundercloud.

“Your silver knife, Kageyama!” Hinata shouted, trying to lance the creature with the light from his staff.

Kageyama was still shocked and afraid, and he watched the horrible thing close upon him. But Hinata was moving, he was trying to fight, he was already defending them both.

 _Survive_.

He wouldn’t let Hinata save him anymore. He’d promised himself that. He’d stood over the assassin and looked right at Hinata. He’d said, “We’re even.”

_Is life that meaningless to you, Your Highness, that you would throw it away?_

Hinata had asked him that, after they’d found Hoarfrost’s body, after they’d defeated the assassin. Hinata had given Kageyama his life, had saved him twice now.

_Live._

_I want to_ live.

Kageyama drew his knife from his belt with a yell, lunging toward the oncoming shade. The silver seemed to quell it; it released a whining scream, like steam escaping a teapot. It tried snaking around the knife to get at Kageyama, but Kageyama slashed his knife through the air in a wide arc, keeping the shade at bay.

The thing screeched and billowed up like thick smoke from a brushfire. It whirled around towards Hinata again, separating him from Kageyama. Hinata leaned on his staff, pale-faced and exhausted, staring up at the shade. The apprentice had been using too much magic recently. Kageyama needed to do something. He needed to help, quickly now, quickly, quickly, what could he do? He had to be fast. He had to get it exactly right, time it perfectly, get it exactly on target—

“Hinata!” he cried. Hinata lifted his head. And Kageyama hurled the dagger. It sailed like an arrow shot from a bow, turning once in the air, and it passed through the shade with a wrenching, sizzling  _pop_ , like oil in a pan. The thing screamed. Hinata reached out, and with expert dexterity plucked the blade from the air, like Kageyama had sent it directly to his hand.

“Shadow,” Hinata growled, “return to darkness.”

He slashed the shade again with the silver knife, and a brilliant white flame extended from the blade. Bright light split though the creature like crackling lightning across a darkened sky. Hinata spoke in the language Kageyama heard before. It was one, long word of garbled and clicking syllables, like the sound of scales sliding over each other as a viper uncoils. He spat the word with his whole body, his arms raised, one hand with clawed fingers, the other gripping his staff tight. He brought down the staff, and the road trembled. The dark thing wavered like smoke, screeching horribly at them. Its seethed with hatred, and Kageyama felt the brunt of its abhorrence directed at him.

Then the wind sighed, and the trees shook, and leaves fell through the air that passed over them like a dragon’s breath.

And the shade was gone.

Kageyama let out a horrified breath. He stumbled, nearly falling to his knees. His legs trembled with terror. “What was  _that_?” he demanded in a shaky voice, turning to Hinata. But the other boy only looked up at him and smiled weakly, leaning on his staff. He swayed in place. “Hinata?” The wizard apprentice tried to right himself, but collapsed. “Hinata!” Kageyama raced forward and caught him. He was surprisingly heavy for someone so short, but Kageyama managed to lift him—cradling the boy in his arms—and carry him off the road. “Stupid, dumb-ass,” he muttered. “You pushed yourself too far.”

He set the apprentice against a tree beside the road, arranging Hinata’s wizard cloak around his small body. He placed the staff carefully on the ground near Hinata’s feet. Then he pulled his water canteen from his belt and dripped some water onto the edge of his own traveling cloak, wiping it over Hinata’s forehead. “I don’t have a cloth to mop you with,” Kageyama said quietly, looking at his dusty cloak. “But this may cool you down a little.”

“The shadow,” Hinata murmured. His eyelids fluttered. He was speaking incoherently. “Send it back…it must be severed…”

Kageyama hushed him, wiping his brow with the edge of the cloak again. “You did it, Hinata,” he said. He checked himself. “ _We_  did it. We got rid of…whatever that thing was.” His voice softened as he wiped Hinata’s brow. “We did it  _together_. That was an amazing catch.” He trailed off, looking at the road, keeping an eye out for more dangerous shadows.

“Your toss was incredible.”

Kageyama’s eyes widened. He looked down. Hinata watched him steadily, his eyelids not as fluttery, his brow not as damp. He was still pale, though he had the strength to sit up. He reached for Kageyama’s canteen, and Kageyama quickly gave it to him, not even minding that it was his own water. Hinata drank two deep swallows, then handed it back, bowing his head.

“Your toss,” he said again, his voice soft and tired. “I’ve seen knife-throwers in the streets of Nibo and on the training fields of the King’s Gathering with less accuracy than that throw.” He lifted his hand and looked at it. “It was like you connected the hilt to my hand.” Hinata looked up at him. “You really are incredible, Your Highness.”

Kageyama looked away, feeling heat creep up into his face. He tried to change the subject back to Hinata. “You called me Kageyama,” he said bluntly. “When that…thing attacked me, you called my name.”

_My name…_

The shade had known his true name. Should he tell Hinata? That was wizard business, was it not? Surely, Hinata would know what to do.

“I apologize,” Hinata said, bowing his head again. “I wanted to get your attention and break you from the shade’s grip. Your name was the most effective way to draw you from it.”

“Ah,” Kageyama said, deflating a little. “It was just…nice to hear you say it. Instead of ‘Your Highness’ all the time.”

Hinata smiled wanly. Then he cringed, clutching his side and groaning again.

“Easy,” Kageyama said, leaning down to hold Hinata again. Hinata’s eyes fluttered; he seemed on the brink of slipping into unconsciousness. Kageyama returned the edge of his cloak to Hinata’s brow, wringing out the water to cool his head. “Don’t push yourself, Hinata. Please. You’ve done enough. Please, Hinata. Please.”

He wiped Hinata’s brow and pleaded with him in a soft voice and stayed crouched over his body, there on the side of the road in the twinkling afternoon light, and he didn’t bother counting how many times he said the wizard-boy’s name.

 

**II**

**Healing**

_“No one knows what the wizards do with the blood they take for the magic they work. To be sure and honest, I do not think I wish to find the answer.”_

—from  _The Accounts of Ukai and Takeda_

 

When Kageyama had been very young, and his parents were in the country settling a trading deal with the far-pirates who’d been harassing the port merchants in the waters around Kitaga’n Island, Kageyama’s tutor—and the Monarch’s closest advisor—Oikawa had come to him and shown him magic for the first time.

“The Way is an art for the very skilled and highly trained,” Oikawa had explained as he led the young Prince through the gardens. He waved his hand in a wide arc in front of his body, speaking a word Kageyama didn’t recognize. The camellia trees in the garden were in bloom, and their beautiful flowers were dappled with the afternoon light. But at Oikawa’s word, they withered and retreated into themselves, as if their blossoming was undone, and they returned to tiny buds. All around the garden, the bright red flowers wilted away until all that was left was a dark curtain of shiny green leaves, and Kageyama was afraid.

Then Oikawa spoke again, and the flowers returned. “Do you know how I do this?” he asked Kageyama.

Kageyama shook his head, clinging to his tutor’s teal robes, expecting any minute for the garden to disappear. “I do this through the power of the art-magic, through the Way,” Oikawa said. “It is the only way to true power in this world, though the wizards of Nibomeh would try to make a king.” There was disgust in his voice, and Kageyama looked up at him, his dark eyes wide with confusion. He was too young to know what his tutor spoke of.

Oikawa smiled down at him and patted his head. “But there are good wizards still in the world,” he went on in an assuring tone. “Like me. You parents trust me. You must trust me as well, young Prince. I will guide you safely to your throne, and teach you the ways of this wicked world.”

“Yes, Oikawa,” Kageyama said, his voice small.

Oikawa knelt down, smiling. “Now,” he said, and he pulled out a needle. He took Kageyama’s hand and placed the point of the needle gently on the pad of his first finger. “Let me show you the other part of magic.”

 

∫ ∫ ∫

 

Hinata woke with a start.

Above him, late afternoon light shone softly through green leaves. His head rested against the trunk of a large oak. He shifted his foot and felt the familiar weight of his staff on his leg. He flexed his fingers, stretched his ankles, rolled his shoulders. Nothing felt broken or injured. He was whole—as whole as he could be after facing a shade. He groaned and stretched his neck, now stiff from leaning against the tree for so long.

A noise next to him, a quiet intake of breath, and Hinata looked around to see Kageyama crouched a few paces away, watching closely.

Hinata slowly stood, using the tree for balance. He saw Kageyama lean forward as if he meant to help, but the Prince held himself back, and Hinata struggled to his feet on his own. “Thank you for tending to me,” he said to Kageyama once he was upright. “And for watching over me while I slept. We’ve lost a lot of daylight. I am sorry, Your Highness.”

Kageyama bristled where he still crouched on the ground, looking down at his hands resting on his knees. “You don’t need to apologize,” he said quietly.

“I’ve slowed you down, Highness. Not a very useful guide I’m turning out to—”

“You idiot!” Kageyama shouted, springing to his feet. “You could have died!”

Hinata blinked, his mouth hanging open. Tears were in Kageyama’s eyes. The Prince wiped at his face furiously with his sleeve, but Hinata had seen them.

“We’ve lost Hoarfrost already,” Kageyama said, his voice mournfully pained. “I—I can’t lose—I don’t want to go on. Without you, too. Alone.”

Hinata’s heart trembled within his chest.  _Oh, my Prince…_

“Kageyama,” he said softly, and the Prince stiffened. Hinata chewed his lip, thinking he’d overstepped the boundary he himself had placed between them.

But then Kageyama stepped forward, and he was taller than Hinata by quite a bit, almost a full head taller, so Hinata had to crane his neck to look up at him. He wanted to cry ‘Unfair!’ but he knew the Prince was struggling with something deep within himself. He could sense it in his own spirit, too.

“You won’t lose me, Kageyama,” Hinata said again, and he was surprised at how easily the Prince’s name came to him, how it fell from his tongue, how the sounds rolled around in his mouth. “I promise, I’m stronger than I look.”

But Kageyama was coming closer to him, looming over him, and Hinata wondered if he really had overstepped his boundary. He wanted to back away, but the tree was behind him. He forced himself to stand firm, and look up into the Prince’s face.

And then Kageyama reached out, slowly, his arms raising on either side of Hinata’s body. And he took Hinata by the shoulders. And he pulled him close.

And the Prince embraced him.

Hinata’s eyes widened as Kageyama hugged him tightly, his body trembling against Hinata’s. The Prince started to cry, and then full, heaving sobs wracked his body. He wept into Hinata’s shoulder, and the young wizard just stood there, amazed. Eventually, he wrapped his arms around Kageyama, too, and held the weeping Prince.

“I was so worried,” Kageyama whispered between sobs into Hinata’s ear. “It’s all my fault, I brought that thing, I must have. It knew my name, it called to me. If it weren’t for me, then you— And it weighed so heavily on you, and you were so tired, and I didn’t know what to do, I was useless. I’m so sorry, Hinata. I’m sorry. I was so worried. Please, forgive me. I’m sorry, Hinata. Please, forgive me. Please.”

Hinata closed his eyes. He rubbed circles along the Prince’s back with his hands, and he squeezed him tight to remind him they were both alive, and he listened to the young Prince weep, and beg for forgiveness. But there was no forgiveness to give, for there was no blame, and Hinata knew this. But he waited to tell the Prince, because the Prince needed these tears. He’d needed them for some time, and Hinata was content to stand there and hold him, and let himself be held, as the boy-Prince cried into his shoulder in the middle of the woods, the warm sunlight falling upon them and the road ahead, waiting, quiet and eternal in the dusk.

 

∫ ∫ ∫

 

After their encounter with the shade, Hinata decided it was time they be off the road and get to Nibo as fast as possible. No more stopping, no more resting. There was an inn with a stable half a league up the road from them, and there they would try to procure a couple horses. They hadn’t been able to at any previous inns; all the steeds had been lent out or belonged to other patrons. This was their last chance to procure a quicker ride to Nibo, and Hinata wanted to make sure they got something out of it. “The road has always been dangerous,” he told Kageyama as they approached the inn, night falling around them. “But it’s especially full of dangers for a traveling Prince and wizard-apprentice. People want to extort us, or dark creatures wish to destroy us. Life is always an adventure, isn’t it?” And he had grinned.

Kageyama, who’d finally started to seem more relaxed around him, but after the shade had grown even more somber than usual, had smiled weakly in return.

At the inn, they gave their agreed upon fake names: ‘Crow’ for Hinata, and ‘Diamond’ for Kageyama.

“Diamond, eh? That’s a pretty name,” the ruddy innkeeper said. She looked Kageyama up-and-down. Hinata had covered Kageyama’s princely clothing with a spare tunic and cloth he’d magicked into looking like a weathered traveling cloak. Himself, he’d left the same; wizards of Nibo didn’t need to appear weathered and well-worn, as they already traveled humbly by the very nature of their order.

“Pretty name for a pretty youth,” Hinata said, flashing a smile at the innkeeper. Kageyama blushed under the cap Hinata had given him to hide his smooth, well-kept hair. “I only wish his namesake was less true about his face, and more about the amount in our pockets,” Hinata bemoaned, and the woman grunted and nodded, respecting a common desire for wealth and profit. “Now, how much for a night?”

Hinata worked out a price with the keeper, and Kageyama wandered into the main hall. High, sturdy oaken rafters held up the roof, thick beams of polished and gleaming red wood. The tables were also oak, and there were many, and many were occupied. In the left-hand wall was a large hearth, wide enough for a man to step into. In it, a blazing fire. The chill of night was kept well out of the corners and rafters of the hall by the fire’s immense heat. Near the hearth, a man with a little woodwind instrument accompanied a woman on a fiddle. They played while a young boy in a large hat sang in a hearty voice—raspy, yet strong. Around them, men and women at the tables lifted their mugs and sang along, or simply clapped and laughed. It was not one of the great songs sung in royal halls, but a simple tune about an otter hatching a goose egg. Yet here, Kageyama felt the song was more important than any great ballad.

He wondered if it could be that the common, small moments of the world were just as important as the grand, fantastic ones.

Hinata appeared by his side, clapping him on the shoulder. He was grinning. “Got us a room, Diamond,” he said cheerily, winking at the name.

“ _A_  room? We’re sharing?”

“Course,” Hinata said, snorting. His eyes gleamed in the firelight, and he smiled as he watched the people in the hall dance and laugh. Kageyama stared at him. The wizard seemed so much different here, among people. He’d touched Kageyama on the shoulder like a friend. He’d gotten them a room to share. He’d defended his name—even a fake one—to the innkeeper.

Was this who the wizard truly was? Not the distant, formal guide, but a joyous, energetic youth? A boy—just like Kageyama. One who at last could be himself among people like him.

Kageyama looked out at the hall.  _People like him…_

Really, what was the difference between himself and the people here now, laughing and enjoying themselves? They were Hinata’s people, simple and good, but were they not Kageyama’s people as well? Were they not all one people, waiting for a king to unite them?

_I will guide you safely to your throne, and teach you the ways of this wicked world._

Kageyama flinched, Oikawa’s words rising unbidden to his mind.

 _Don’t trust the wizards of Nibo. Trust me, Prince Kageyama_.

Kageyama looked down at Hinata beside him, smiling and happy and carefree.

And something inside the Prince crumbled.

 _Yes, Oikawa_.

Kageyama turned away from Hinata. He mumbled something about going to bed, and didn’t wait to see if Hinata even heard him.

 

∫ ∫ ∫

 

Hinata climbed the creaky stairs to the upper floor. Two levels above the main hall, most of the music was muffled by the thick beams and wooden floors. Day had crossed into evening, and now the dark hours fell upon them, but still the revelers below would party until late in the night. Hinata was glad for the well-insulated floors to keep the music at bay. He made his way quietly to their room. Kageyama would probably already be asleep. He would try not to wake the Prince.

Hinata considered the Prince in his mind as he crept along the hallway, not wanting to wake any of the other patrons either. He wasn’t sure what to make of Prince Kageyama. He was clearly intelligent and brave—he’d shown true skill handling the shade. But he was so reserved as well. Something held Kageyama back. Something lay at the heart of his original animosity towards Hinata beyond that first slip of the tongue.

“Highness,” Hinata whispered to himself. “Majesty.”

Titles. They were meaningless to Hinata as a wizard. But he knew the power of a word, and spoke no word mistakenly. To speak was to take action, and to take action was to make change. Thought to deed, that was one of the tenants of the wizarding school in the city of Nibo.

Thus, Hinata had only spoken truly when he called Kageyama ‘Majesty’ at their first meeting above the docks. The Monarchs of Kitaga’n were dead. The Courts of the Set Lands had sent word to Nibo that the son of the Monarchs would take his father’s place as representative in the Gathering. When Hinata had first met Kageyama, he’d seen not a Prince, but a Monarch. He’d called him ‘Majesty.’ He’d addressed Kageyama’s birthright. He’d spoken true.

Why, then, did Kageyama refuse to be called ‘Majesty?’ What held him back from accepting who he was?

He remembered the gatekeeper’s question to Kageyama:  _Do you know who you are?_

Perhaps the Prince still did not know. Perhaps that was why the gatekeeper had introduced Hinata as an apprentice, so as not to intimidate the lonely Prince any more than he already was by the role he would soon need to accept: his throne. Perhaps the gatekeeper had seen that Kageyama needed something before he could become a Monarch.

Perhaps he needed a friend.

Hinata reached the door to their shared room. He pushed it open silently. He would talk to the Prince in the morning, and set this matter once and for all.

He stepped into the room, and saw Kageyama was still awake. And he was waiting.

The Prince sat shirtless on the bed, facing the wall away from the door, his back to Hinata. It was broad and smooth, the muscles of his shoulders bunched as he sat forward, elbows resting on his knees, head hanging down. Moonlight fell upon his pale skin, illuminating him like a ghost, like a piece of glinting silver in the night. The soft light of the moon caressed every curve and cut edge of Kageyama’s body. And Hinata saw he’d chosen correctly when he’d called Kageyama ‘Diamond,’ for he was indeed cut well and sharp. Hinata imagined the Prince must have trained hard for many years to achieve his physique. No wonder he’d handled himself so well against the assassin and the shade. He was not just a prince. He was a warrior.

The door closed just as quietly as it opened. Hinata leaned his staff against the wall, letting its end scrape the floor to let Kageyama know he was there. Kageyama lifted his head, and he turned.

Hinata should have known his chest would be broad as well, considering Kageyama’s back, but the definition of his pectorals and abs still caught the wizard by surprise. The Prince was a solid, powerfully built figure. Hinata suddenly felt very small, very aware of his own size next to him.

He crossed the room to the bed and stood in front of the Prince. “I missed you downstairs,” he said. “The boy had a good song about a maiden who gets lost in the hill country and marries a poor shepherd, then runs away with all his goats. You would have enjoyed it.”

Kageyama said nothing. He only lowered his eyes, looking down at the bed. He was very somber and quiet, and Hinata wanted to know why. But the Prince didn’t turn away, so Hinata took it as a sign to continue. “I got us two steeds and pack horse from a merchant at the card tables. I won them in a game,” he said proudly. “We can ride the rest of the way to Nibo.”

Kageyama nodded, but still did not lift his head, like a chastised child he kept his eyes to the thin sheet he twisted between his fingers. “That is good,” he said, his voice barely audible.

Hinata stepped away from him, giving him some space and quiet as he took off his cloak. There was a single wooden chair in the room, by the window, and this was where Kageyama had draped his shirt and cloak. Hinata lay his cloak on top, then undid the laces on the front of his shirt. He pulled it over his head. The night was warm, and the spring would soon turn to summer, and it would get warmer still.

“Hinata.”

He turned. Kageyama was still sitting upright on the edge of the bed, his head lowered. Hinata noticed for the first time that his knife—the same one he’d fought the shade with—lay on the bed next to him. He was looking at his hands. They were calloused and firm, from years of swordplay no doubt. But the fingertips were calloused in a specific way Hinata recognized.

“You’ve used so much magic while you’ve been with me,” Kageyama said. “And I’ve given nothing in return.” His voice was still so quiet—it rasped through their little room, and it lodged itself in Hinata’s chest. He looked down at Kageyama’s bowed head, and his hands curled to fists. He knew what the Prince was about to do.

Kageyama reached for the knife, his movements slow, resigned. “You grew tired. You collapsed,” Kageyama muttered toward his lap. “It’s my fault. I didn’t give you the payment, the offering. I didn’t want you to take my blood. But that’s the rule. That’s how it’s done. And because of me, you almost died.”

He put the point of the knife to the tip of his left forefinger. “I’m sorry, Hinata,” he whispered. “This is all my fault. You almost dying. Hoarfrost—” He choked up, and could not finish the thought. “I’ve been so weak. I’ve been useless. I didn’t want to trust you, any of you. You, the wizards of Nibo. You, the ones who hold the balance of the world. I tried to stay apart from you—but you made me think I could… You, Hinata, gave me something I’ve never…”

“Your Highness,” Hinata started, but Kageyama shook his head. “Never that title again,” Kageyama said. And he finally raised his head to meet Hinata’s eyes. Hinata felt something stir within him when Kageyama said the word ‘title,’ as if they’d been thinking the same thoughts, and he looked into the moonlit face of the Prince.

His face was wet with tears.

“Call me by my name, Hinata,” Kageyama whispered, pleaded. “Never again call me by that title. You’ve given me that which I lacked for so long. And I almost betrayed that tonight. I wanted to. Another wizard instructed me never to trust the wizards of Nibo. But you’ve given me my life, Hinata. You’ve given it to me again and again, in just the few days we have known each other. I do not want to betray that. Not now, not ever. Beside you,  _with_  you, I feel…” He looked around, as if searching the room for some word that could fill the silence, some sound that could properly say something for which there were no words.

Hinata knelt in front of the Prince. He put his hands around Kageyama’s hand with the knife. “Then do not betray it, Kageyama,” he said, and he said nothing about the shiver that ran through Kageyama’s hand and arm and body at his name. He took the knife from the Prince and tossed it to the chair where it landed on the pile of cloaks and shirts. “Let it be what it is, my Prince,” he said softly.

At that Kageyama grew still, and he looked into Hinata’s eyes. His mouth opened, but he said nothing. He only stared, eyes wide and full of wonder.

Hinata reached up and tentatively put his hand on Kageyama’s shoulder. His skin was smooth as velvet beneath his own calloused hand, and the firm ripple of muscle beneath shivered like the flank of a horse in a cold morning. Hinata put his other hand on Kageyama’s chest—the same firm resistance of raw strength rippling under his fingers—and slowly pushed Kageyama down to the bed. “You should sleep, my Prince,” he said, noticing that Kageyama did not object to ‘my Prince,’ and used it again to soothe him.

“The payment. The…blood,” Kageyama started, but this time it was Hinata who shook his head, and he was the one to say, “Never that, Kageyama. I will never take from you, and you will never need to give it to me.”

“But that’s how it’s done,” Kageyama protested. “It’s about taking payment.”

Hinata smiled. “Is that what they told, all the way back home on Kitaga’n? It’s not about taking,” he said gently. “It’s about giving. It’s about trust. You said you want to trust me, Kageyama. Then trust me. I do not need to take from you. Magic comes from the act of  _giving_.”

Kageyama said nothing more, lying down to ponder this, and Hinata climbed into the bed beside him. They lay back-to-back, the warmth of their bodies pressing close and comfortable, and for the first time since they began their journey, they both slept soundly through the night.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally going to post this as two chapters, but really they go together, so this is all one Part. Thank you again for your patience as I work through personal stuff to get this to you! This part was really hard to work on because, sadly, Ursula K. Le Guin (who wrote the Earthsea Cycle that this is based on) passed away a few weeks ago. She was such an inspiration to me as a writer and a human being.
> 
> Ursula, this is dedicated to you.
> 
>  
> 
> Here’s some world-building notes and such! Since it’s been a while:
> 
> SCRYING is a form of communication/long-distance viewing, also sometimes used to see into the near future. You may have read this Part and thought “But wait the last chapter ended with them entering Nibo!” That was just the Archmage using scrying. The hint was at the very end when the Archmage pulls his face away from “a bowl of clear water.” Water or mirrors are common forms of scrying.
> 
> The DEEPWOLF may or may not come back. All I can say is pay attention to everything. *wink wink* Every detail is important.
> 
> THE ROAD they’ve been traveling is a long one, but don’t worry, this is the last chapter with them traveling. Next chapter, we get to see the great city of Nibo.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading <3
> 
> Come say hi on tumblr @ sagechan.tumblr.com  
> Twitter @sagechantweets


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